Efforts to diversify Collier County’s economy might be described using the idiom “fits and starts.” Now, however, we see a new year arriving with a fitting new start.

The “fits” trace to 1976 with the formation of the Collier County Economic Development Council (EDC) because of concern the local economy was based too much on tourism and real estate/construction.

Within just the past decade, Project Innovation launched in 2008 with the intention of diversifying the economy. That initiative died, as did the EDC in September 2011. A 2012 KMK Consulting report then concluded, you guessed it, that Collier needed to diversify its economy. So Collier government created an economic development arm, but it languished for two years under ineffective leadership.

Late 2013 brought a big splash with the public-private Partnership for Collier’s Future Economy. A Market Street Services study for the Greater Naples Chamber of Commerce showed Collier lost more than 13 percent of its jobs -- nearly 20,000 -- during the Great Recession. Tourism and real estate/construction saw major job losses.

That’s a lot of “fits.” But thankfully in 2016 we saw a “start” with sustainable industry added through the efforts of county government, Greater Naples chamber leadership and state economic development agency support.

As we begin 2017, we now actually have a bar we can raise. So as one of its priorities for advancement in the new year, our editorial board suggests it’s time to not only diversify the economy but to build toward a sustainable year-round one. Compared with those decades of “fits and starts,” we’re seeing Collier becoming more year-round.

The new start

Some progress we saw in 2016 suggests we can begin to move forward on a year-round economy:

+ Expansion of corporate headquarters and clean manufacturing. These include Arthrex (medical device manufacturing) expanding in Ave Maria and North Naples adding 910 well-paying jobs; publicly traded ACI Worldwide (business consulting) adding dozens of jobs averaging $180,000 yearly; an in-demand county-supported incubator for technology and international business growth, and the first high-end “Class A” office building to rise in Collier since the recession.

+ New facets of tourism. Steps were taken to delve further into the nationally growing sports tourism market, including youth and adult tournaments. A multisports complex and arena oriented toward youth with indoor courts for summer would be a year-round gain (Lee now has three major sports arenas). A system of offshore reefs will help, as will Collier latching onto the growing pickleball sport and recent renovation of several resorts.

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+ Food industry. Everyone eats year-round, so it’s wise for county leadership to advance its Immokalee culinary incubator to create more food industry and distribution jobs. As development squeezes the land available for agriculture, state lawmakers should continue investing in program expansion at the University of Florida’s research center in Immokalee to improve crop productivity, maximize water usage, improve food safety and diagnose plant disease.

+ Higher education. We’re fortunate to have two public institutions of higher learning – Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) and Florida SouthWestern State College – that target degrees to local business needs. State legislative support for both will help ensure the talent pool our schools produce isn’t exported to other parts of the country; instead, they can graduate into good jobs here.

Measures

There are ways to measure whether our economy remains seasonal or is becoming more sustainable year-round. Here are two:

+ The number of people working in each metropolitan area is tracked in state employment data. In 2016, Collier still had about 6,000 more people working in the peak month of November (158,500) than were employed from June through August.

As that disparity shrinks, we’ll be raising the bar in sustained year-round employment.